In The New Republic yesterday, journalist Suki Kim wrote a powerful essay about the reception of her last book, Without You, There Is No Us. Just before the book was to be published, Kim discovered that her editor had decided to label it as a memoir, since calling it a work of journalism “would limit its potential readership.” Kim objected to the label, to say the least:

Suki Kim, courtesy of the author’s website

I did not wish that my book were Eat, Pray, Love. As the only journalist to live undercover in North Korea, I had risked imprisonment to tell a story of international importance by the only means possible. By casting my book as personal rather than professional—by marketing me as a woman on a journey of self-discovery, rather than a reporter on a groundbreaking assignment—I was effectively being stripped of my expertise on the subject I knew best. It was a subtle shift, but one familiar to professional women from all walks of life. I was being moved from a position of authority—What do you know?—to the realm of emotion: How did you feel?

After the book came out, Kim faced more invalidation—this time from other journalists angered by her decision to go undercover, “the very element that typically wins acclaim for narrative accounts of investigative journalism,” as well as from (male) readers who had traveled to North Korea. In the end, Kim concludes that she faced a backlash because of her position “as a woman of color entrenched in a profession still dominated by white men.”

For proof of this prevalence, check out any list of notable, book-length works of narrative investigative journalism, like this one from the editors of the Columbia Journalism Review. Inevitably, it will feature far more titles written by men—after all, they represent the vast majority of what’s published. Still, an ever-increasing number of women journalists are writing compelling, impeccably researched narratives about important, complicated, and daunting subjects. Here are some essential titles whose authors have done just that: